When we
first meet the protagonists of 21 &
Over, they are naked, walking in shame across a college campus with bruises
on their behinds and socks on their fronts (Use your imagination). It's supposed to be a low point for them after a long night of running
around a college campus trying to get their blackout-drunk friend home before a
big job interview in the morning, but after spending a little bit of time with
these two, it seems more like appropriate retribution.

If
there's one thing these early-20-somethings don't deserve, it's sympathy, but
Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who co-wrote and co-directed the movie, pull out
three different manipulative tricks in order to try to goad our sympathy for
their central characters. Miller
(Miles Teller) is really, apparently, a very smart guy despite all evidence to
contrary (There's plenty of inconsistency among these simplistic characters),
including his belief that there are bears native to Africa and that identifying
all the people he meets by their ethnic background is somehow endearing. At one point, he introduces himself to a complete stranger by sighing,
"Thank God you're white." Yes,
that line is taken out of context, but honestly, the context doesn't help his
case.

The
second is a strait-laced student from an illustrious university whose desire to
work on Wall Street once he graduates influences every decision he makes. It would be easy enough to dismiss Casey (Skylar Astin) based on the fact
that he still considers the first guy his friend (Again, the screenplay never
gives us a good reason to believe that the two haven't drifted apart after high
school, and their friendship comes across as a machination of necessity), which
points to a lack of intelligence on his part.

He's
meant to be unsympathetic because Miller considers him a "tool" for
the way he dresses and actually cares about his future. For some reason, Lucas and Moore believe that his redemption lies in
whether or not he decides to make a move on a fairly annoying young woman named
Nicole (Sarah Wright), whom Casey meets at a bar and who keeps showing up
throughout the night to tempt him with her lack of helpfulness, the fact that
she has a jerk for a boyfriend, and her announcement that she'll be spending
spring break traveling across South America.

The
final friend is named Jeff Chang (Justin Chon), whom both Miller and Casey
constantly refer to as "Jeffchang," as if his last name and, hence,
his race define him entirely. Poor
Jeff spends most of the movie drunk and at the mercy of his friends, who turn
out to be quite merciless.

They
throw him off a balcony (A well-timed bounce, admittedly, provides one of the
movie's very limited chuckles). They
drop him a couple of stories onto a van. They
tie him to a toilet in a women's bathroom (He thinks a tampon is a candy bar,
and the long take of him chewing it means Lucas and Moore apparently think
cotton is gross—but only if it's used to make feminine hygiene products). They leave him in the care of a couple of stoners who proceed to strip
him and glue a stuffed animal to his genitals, and yes, his friends later tear
off the toy. It's only when they
learn that he might have tried to commit suicide (The details are vague, but
it's a testament to how cruel the movie is that it would use that development
for cheap effect) that they treat him as more than a prop.

The
three friends have gathered together at Jeff's college to celebrate his 21st
birthday, though at first, Jeff is hesitant to go out for the night because his
hard-nosed father (François Chau) has set up an important job interview for him
in the morning. Miller coerces him
with the threat of keeping him awake all night with an air horn, and soon
enough, Jeff is taking shot after shot and ends up unconscious. Neither Miller nor Casey know where their friend's house is located, and
they spend the rest of the night trying to hunt down his address.

The
jokes of 21 & Over are either
mean-spirited (Anything Miller says or does, including assaulting two women at a
Latina sorority house—misogynistic and racist at the same time—because they
"asked for it") or entirely random (A bison goes on a rampage after
Miller pulls a gun on someone—seriously—and shoots it in the air); all of
them are pretty predictable. All of
this is really just to say that these guys deserve more than what they've gotten
when we first meet them.